Criminal Minds: Roadkill
By fred | May 7, 2009
(S04E23) All the many unsubs we get to see on this show have their own motives and ways of killing people, they don’t always use the same weapons to get it done, but there was something about this one unsub and the way he was killing his victims that made the entire thing sound, to me, a lot different than what we usually get. Whether it was the weapon itself and the way it was used, somehow – and despite everything else – it felt less dark to me.
It might also be that, while there was of course still a personal element to the crimes, as they’re often if not always is, last week was a very strong episode, in which we got to focus on the unsub and his way of seeing things, as well as his unusual connection with the blind kid with whom he felt close, and that “bound” between them, or the way he killed his victims, is like the opposite of what this new unsub was doing.
We didn’t get to see much of this unsub, but what I liked about this episode were the many misdirections that took place. At first it appeared as if it was another case of us seeing the unsub from the start, thus giving us more information about him than the team have. Haven’t picked up on the similarities between cars like Reid had, at first I thought his wife might have divorced him and he was taking revenge on whoever helped her take his daughter away from his.
Then when the idea of a car accident came by, I was still thinking that he probably lost his wife and daughter, and was after whoever did that. I really liked how it turned out to be another man, the one who thought was responsible for the accident and the unsub’s killer spree, while it actually turned out to be wrong as well. There was no other car, the unsub was the one responsible for his wife’s death, and luckily the poor guy who did run away from the crime did not let anyone dead and even (badly) injured behind him.
Even though we knew more than the team, we were also being played this week and that made things a lot more interesting I thought. A couple of things about those crimes though. First of all, and I always have the same reaction whenever there’s such a scene in any TV shows or movies, but why the Hell do those people always think they can simply run faster than a car??
Seriously, why not go on the side, make yourself a path where even with that giant SUV he couldn’t easily follow, that means between trees while out on the road, or in between cars while in the parking lot. But no, those people always stay on the road, thinking it wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t give the guy a chance to catch them I guess, plus they can run really fast!
Also, I’m guessing this wasn’t meant to be done that way, and probably just badly done/edited, but the guy in the elevator just looked like he couldn’t care less about the guy running towards the elevator, screaming for help and begging to hold the elevator. It’s only at the very last second that the idea popped into mind, maybe I should try and hold the elevator!
I also wonder about that last kill they managed to stop. What was that?? So far he had been very good at observing his victim and isolating them, making sure they would end up alone in a place where they couldn’t be heard or seen, or even run as long as they’d stay on the road, which they conveniently did. But this time, he was going to do what? Take down the entire group? How could he be sure he would be the last one, and that he could get him without hurting/killing anybody else? Not to mention that there would have been, obviously, a lot of witnesses!
Among the other things I liked were also Emily and her comment about all the things she used to do, and I wonder if her comment about the unsub being stuck wasn’t also significant of something given the way she said it, JJ doing something we hadn’t seen her do in a while, and I don’t mean talking to the guy at the end (though that was a nice scene), but doing a press conference!
Last words about Garcia: at first I didn’t like the way things were sounding, mostly because it felt as if since the season ended they needed to get ride of the guy, go back to normal, hence moving him out of the country. So I was glad that in the end it didn’t go that way, and I’m sure – especially since before he showed up she was contemplating a life of solitude and celibacy – that she didn’t meant to ruin his chance for the job, she just wanted to found out more about it, what it was and where it was.
That being said, after insisting so much on the whole “I can’t tell you where it is, it’s top secret” to pull the even more clichéd bit of her mentioning the location and him to be like “but I never told you…” was really not to my liking. I kinda hate that, because it didn’t look to me as if she of course knew that, and was just trying to confess that she was the one who hacked in. Also, if it’s such a secret location, wouldn’t they only tell where it is to those who actually got the job? Otherwise she could have applied, with no intention whatsoever to actually take it, only to find out all those classified info, which sounds quite wrong.
Anyways, maybe not a memorable episode but a very good one, as the show can do.
What did everybody else think?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
